The Spice of Life
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Tag to "Prey". Tuvok advises Captain Janeway about how to deal with Seven after their conflict over Species 8472.


The Spice of Life

By Laura Schiller

Based on Star Trek: Voyager

Copyright: Paramount

"Captain," said Tuvok, looking up from the security report he had been reviewing with his old friend. It was a report on the battle between Voyager, the Hirogen and Species 8472 from earlier that day, which must have reminded him of what he had meant to ask. "If I may ask – what action do you intend to take regarding Seven of Nine?"

Kathryn Janeway leaned back into the solid gray cushions of her ready-room sofa and sighed. Her head ached just from hearing the former Borg drone's designation; if there ever was a day she regretted keeping that girl on board, that day was today.

"I blocked her access to the ship's primary systems," she answered, her voice rough with resentment and fatigue. "From now on, she can only get to them with my authorization. I'd have put her in the brig, except we need her expertise in Astrometrics. I know what you're thinking, Tuvok - " She held up one hand in defense. "That I'm being too lenient. Unfortunately, these are the only measures I can afford to take."

The line between Tuvok's eyebrows, the only outward sign of his constant battle for emotional control, deepened ever so slightly as he spoke.

"In this case, Captain," he said, "You do not know what I am thinking."

She straightened her spine abruptly, stung into abandoning her relaxed posture for one of authority. "Then what _are_ you thinking, Commander?"

He put down his padd, clasped his hands together in a meditative pose, and met her eyes with the sharp, steady gaze of a security officer who missed nothing around him.

"I believe," he said, "That, although you were correct to discipline Seven, I advise you to think carefully about your motives. Are you teaching her to respect the command structure of this ship, or are you giving way to feelings of resentment?"

Kathryn flushed with anger, shame and disbelief. Tuvok was one of only wo people on the ship whom she allowed to speak to her this way, and she knew he only did so when he truly believed her to be wrong. In calmer moments, she admired him for it; right now, though, she was anything but calm.

She thought of the story she had shared with Seven about saving that Cardassian soldier, a memory from one of the most painful times of her life; a heartfelt, hard-earned lesson which the younger woman had dismissed without so much as a second thought. Her temples throbbed.

"Damn right, I'm resentful," she snapped. "I'm also disappointed. I put a lot of effort into looking after that girl, more than I can afford with the entire crew depending on me. I put up with her constant questions and challenges, her fights with B'Elanna, the crew's complaints, even her attempts to get back to the Collective. I put my trust in her, and how did she repay me? She disobeyed my direct order and, by doing so, condemned a sentient being to its death, and you're _defending_ her?"

"'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few'_,_" he replied evenly_._ "It was a choice between the life of a single, already dying stranger and the lives of your crew. Her decision was … logical."

Tuvok's face was dark and impassive as a wooden carving. Even after more than twenty years of friendship and mutual onfidence with this Vulcan, at times like these she despaired of ever understanding them.

"I can't believe you, Tuvok." She shook her head. "You were in telepathic contact with this being. You felt its fear, its suffering, its _desperation_ to return to its own people. And now you're telling me that sending it to be slaughtered was the right thing to do?"

"I did not say that." Tuvok lowered his eyes down to the meditative position of his hands. For the first time, a slight note of strain entered his voice as he answered. "I, too, regret the creature's death … a death which was none the less necessary for the safety of _Voyager._"

"There must have been another way," she argued, knowing it was futile. "We could have sent it home, fought off the Hirogen - "

"We were outnumbered six to one." He raised an eyebrow at her, a gesture that spoke a thousand words. She slumped back against the sofa in defeat.

"Do not mistake me, Captain. Idealism and compassion may not be prudent in every situation … but they are still some of the finest qualities you possess, and I would not have you lose them."

He looked over at her and, if only for a moment, she caught a glimpse of the warmth behind his cool façade. He rarely showed it, but it was always there, and she must never forget that all his logical, uncompromising, sometimes severe counsel was drawn from a deep well of loyalty and friendship.

"When I was a young man," he said, "My parents sent me first to a Vulcan temple, and later to Starfleet Academy, against my wishes in an attempt to regulate my tendency to excessive emotion. I made every effort to disappoint them. I understand now why they acted as they did … but if they had accepted me as I was, rather than as they wished me to be, we might have come to an understanding earlier."

Kathryn, even though she sensed where this was going, could not help but feel some sympathy for his younger self. She remembered their guided meditation exercise in pursuit of that memory-virus, watching Ensign Tuvok endure the jokes, insults and incomprehension of the _Excelsior_ crew. No wonder he was defending Seven now.

"Punish Seven for disobedience if you must, Captain," he concluded. "It is your right. But do not punish her for making a choice unlike your own."

_You claim to respect my individuality,_ she remembered Seven saying. _But in reality, you are frightened by it. _Could there be some truth in her accusation? Was she frightened?

Looking deep inside herself, Kathryn considered that perhaps she was.

"I don't want her to fall back into that Collective mentality," she confessed, with a sigh. "The one that treats some lives as expendable for the good of the whole. I know sometimes it's necessary to think like that, especially when you're in command … but it's also a heavy burden, and one I hoped that, in her human life, she would never have to bear."

She reached out and covered Tuvok's hands with one of her own, not for his comfort, but for hers. His touch telepathy showed her a warmth beyond physical contact, a reassurance, as if he had lit a candle against the darkness of her thoughts. Then his shields came up and she let go, but the candle remained.

"You're right," she said, in response to the words he had not spoken. "I won't make mine any lighter by carrying around her choices as well as mine."

"Indeed."

"She's not me." Kathryn laughed wryly. "Ironic, isn't it? That's exactly what I've been trying to teach her."

Tuvok raised his eyebrow again, this time in lieu of an answering smile. "The experience of mentorship is often fraught with irony, as I have found."

Like a man choosing of his own free will to follow the career to which his parents had once pushed him, Kathryn thought. Like watching the young lieutenant you used to lecture for her reckless, insubordinate behavior going on to become your captain and your friend. Like hearing that captain complain about someone else's insubordination, and listening with patience and logic and understanding. The next time she saw Seven, she would make it clear that, though she had to earn back the Captain's trust now, the Captain's support would always be hers.

Kathryn smiled at her friend, stood up from the sofa, and crossed the room to the replicator. A nod from Tuvok was enough to tell her what he wanted.

"Here's to irony," she said, handing him a cup of rooibos tea and clinking it gently against her coffee mug. "The spice of life."


End file.
